Mediagazer: New ‘Observer’ hires include Faye Penn, Duff McDonald (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)

2:25 PM ET, October 22, 2012

Top News:

Martin Bekkelund / bekkelund.net:

Outlawed by Amazon DRM — A couple of days a go, my friend Linn sent me an e-mail, being very frustrated: Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation. This is DRM at it's worst. Linn travels a lot and therefore has, or should I say had …

Discussion: Boing Boing, Gizmodo, Techdirt, @leolaporte, @jeffjarvis, The Raw Story, Guardian, Forbes and Joe Wikert's Publishing …

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent: Amazon apparently discontinues Kindle Touch in favor of Paperwhite

Guardian:
Amazon makes UK publishers pay 20% VAT on ebook sales

Discussion: This is Money

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Would You Rather Own a Magazine or a Digital Startup? — On the evening of Sunday, Oct. 14, Ad Age Editor Abbey Klaassen and I stood on a small, remote-controlled boat — one not much bigger than a queen-size bed — floating in the pool at the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar at the historic Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Discussion: Betabeat, Capital New York and AdPulp

Felix Salmon:

Magazines vs digital startups — Simon Dumenco has a question: would you rather own a magazine, or a digital startup? He notes that some magazines are making real money these days, including Marie Claire, even as most digital startups fail. Old Media isn't sexy, he says, but …

Drew Olanoff / TechCrunch:

SAY Media Rebrands ReadWriteWeb As “ReadWrite”, Redesigns, Hires Dan “Fake Steve Jobs” Lyons As Editor In Chief — I'm a fan of ReadWriteWeb, always have been, but other than not being able to pronounce the blog's name, I've always appreciated the technical and detailed analysis coming out of the brand.

Discussion: paidContent, ReadWrite and The Next Web

PressGazette:

Newsnight editor steps aside as BBC faces ‘worst crisis for 50 years’ over Savile documentary — Newsnight editor Peter Rippon has stepped aside “with immediate effect” while the BBC reviews its response to the Jimmy Savile sex scandal, the corporation said today.

Discussion: Guardian, New York Times, BBC, @lucymanning, @tomjharper, @lucymanning, @grainnemaguire, The Independent, fleet street fox, @tomjharper, @themediatweets and @davidleigh3

Telegraph:
Jimmy Savile: BBC scrapped investigation after Newsnight came ‘under pressure’ from senior managers

Discussion: Business Insider, blogs.telegraph.co.uk and @christopherhope

Jim Romenesko:

Tampa Tribune's new owner cuts salaries, offers buyouts — The Tampa Tribune — recently sold by Media General to a California private equity investment firm for $9.5 million — is cutting employees' wages and offering buyouts. — “I haven't yet heard what percentage the cuts are averaging,” my tipster writes.

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Did The Daily Beast Eat Newsweek? — The shutdown of the venerable print edition of Newsweek is yet another step in the long, inexorable march of all things print to digital — a familiar storyline. Except when it's not. Many pundits will proclaim Newsweek as simply the latest …

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:

Without Arianna, the Huffington Post mafia is taking Manhattan — “Do you know the moment I knew it was over?” Jonah Peretti says, with a half-nostaligic, half-stockholm-syndrome smile looking across the table at Ken Lerer. — Lerer doesn't know. — “That last Christmas party we had as an independent company,” Peretti says.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Jayson Blair on the first time he plagiarized: 'I can't believe no one caught that' — In the course of a wide-ranging report on plagiarism, Lee Cowan talked with disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair about how he got his start as journalism's most famous plagiarist.

Discussion: CBS News

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

New ‘Observer’ hires include Faye Penn, Duff McDonald — The New York Observer's masthead is continuing to take shape under the paper's latest editor, Aaron Gell. — The weekly's new managing editor is Emily Anne Epstein, who was most recently a reporter for the Daily Mail's U.S. web operation.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Matthew Belloni / The Hollywood Reporter:

Ex-L.A. Times Editors Join BuzzFeed in Push to Cover Hollywood (Exclusive) — Richard Rushfield will head a new Los Angeles bureau for the social news site as Kate Aurthur joins to cover television, film and celebrities. Social news website BuzzFeed is going Hollywood …

Discussion: LA Observed and FishbowlLA

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Streaming TV Startup Aereo Files Appeal In Network Case, Cites Cablevision Precedent — The legal battle between major broadcast networks and TV startup Aereo continues to unwind, as Aereo has filed a brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Noreen Malone / The New Republic:

The Critic Wall Street Loves to Lunch With — Felix Salmon's foppish war on the banks. — THERE AREN'T MANY people who can get the Treasury secretary on the phone—and fewer still who can get away with yelling at him on the call. His wife, sure. Probably the president.